In his "Memoirs," Sir Nathaniel Wraxall has the following relating to this occurrence:--
"Dining at Pitt Place, about four years after the death of Lord Lyttelton, in the year 1783, I had the curiosity to visit the bed-chamber, where the casement window, at which Lord Lyttelton asserted the dove appeared to flutter, was pointed out to me; and at his stepmother's, the Dowager Lady Lyttelton's in Portugal Street, Grosvenor Square, who being a woman of very lively imagination, lent an implicit faith to all the supernatural facts which were supposed to have accompanied or produced Lord Lyttelton's end. I have frequently seen a painting which she herself executed in 1780, especially to commemorate the event: it hung in a conspicuous part of her drawing-room. There the dove appears at the window, while a female figure, habited in white, stands at the foot of the bed, announcing to Lord Lyttelton his dissolution. Every part of the picture was faithfully designed after the description given to her by the valet-de-chambre who attended him, to whom his master related all the circumstances."
[10] Copied from a paper in the autograph of Lord Westcote, entitled "Remarkable Circumstances attending the Death of Thomas, Lord Lyttelton," which the present Lord Lyttelton most courteously entrusted to the Editor of this volume, together with several other original documents relating to the same, as follows:--1. Extract from Mr. Plumer Ward's "Illustrations of Human Life," vol. i. p. 165. 2. Written account given by Sir Digby Neave, bart., to Lord Lyttelton in 1860. 3. MS. containing Mr. George Fortescue's testimony, signed S. L. 4. The following declaration:--"Chiswick, May 6th, 1867. Miles Peter Andrews told me the story of Lord Lyttelton's appearance to him, driving with me at Wingerworth, many years ago.--Anna Hunloke."
[11] Lord Lyttelton's valet made the following statement:--"That Lord Lyttelton made his usual preparations for bed; that he kept every now and then looking for his watch; that when he got into bed, he ordered his curtains to be closed at the foot. It was now within a minute or two of twelve by his watch; he asked to look at mine, and seemed pleased to find it nearly keep time with his own. His lordship then put them both to his ear, to satisfy himself if they went. When it was more than a quarter after twelve by our watches, he said, 'This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find.' When it was near the real hour of twelve, he said, 'Come, I'll wait no longer; get me my medicine, I'll take it, and try to sleep.' I just stepped into the dressing-room to prepare the physic, and had mixed it, when I thought I heard my lord breathing very hard. I ran to him, and found him in the agonies of death."--"Gentleman's Magazine," vol. lxxxv. part i. p. 598, A.D. 1815.